Networks can experience problems due to network constraints such as congestion. In some congestion avoidance mechanisms, such as transmission control protocol (TCP), network traffic can be controlled using a congestion window. As an example, the congestion window is a sender-side limit on the amount of data the sender can transmit into the network before receiving an acknowledgment (ACK). The size of the congestion window can be adjusted as network conditions change. However, certain reduction in congestion window leads to a low utilization and results in a large variance in queuing delay. This disclosure addresses these and other shortcomings related to managing network congestion.